Children's cognitive, affective and behavioral capabilities in coping with the emotional distresses of other persons are investigated. Two sets of information, one of cognitive data and one of affective and behavioral data are obtained on two samples of children: (1) Twenty-two 5-7 year old children constitute a longitudinal sample and (2) 60, 4-11 year old children who are part of a cross-sectional research design. The Peabody Test of mental ability, role-taking tests (Flavell, Chandler) and interpretations of incidents of others' emotional distress (portrayal in eight structured stories) are examined in relation to the child's responding to naturalistic and/or simulated distress incidents. Data collection is completed and coding and analyses are under way. Preliminary analyses indicate that some of the cognitive procedures for assessing children's understanding of other's experiences (Flavell role-taking tests) tend seriously to underestimate young children's social-inferential capabilities.